When is old too old – and young too young?

George Clooney joined the chorus this week for 81-year-old Joe Biden to throw in the US Presidential race towel.

“This is about age. Nothing more,” wrote 63-year-old Democrat donor Clooney, from the privilege of a profession where some go on until they drop. Clint Eastwood has just finished his last film at 93. 

The ‘quit now, Joe’ movement surges, with calls for First Lady Jill Biden to sit her husband down and tell him: “Honey, the time has come.” He would be 86 at the end of the next term, if he won.

No one wants to be told they are too old. It’s like the hardest punch in the gut. 

Too ill, and you accept you need to step back. Tired and fed up, you want to go, but being told you’re too old when you feel fighting fit with more to give is a bitter pill to swallow, especially for the President of the United States.

Queen Elizabeth was 96 when she died and remained as sharp as a tack, working and doing her job and duty. Like her, Biden is surrounded by aides, advisors and help.

Mick Jagger is 80.

His last – and eighth – child was born when he was 73 and he shows no signs of slowing down, and no one is cheeky enough to suggest he does.

Also, like most people, Biden probably still thinks like a 39-year-old. Giving in would be giving up, facing the finality of life and entering the waiting room for the inevitable.

Word is from the White House that he is focused and on the ball most of the time, getting tired, confused and slow late at night.

White House physicians last February described him as a “healthy, vigorous 80-year-old old male.’

It’s been said that Parkinson’s specialists have been visiting White House medics recently. Who knows?

But age alone should never be a preclusion. The spectrum of health at older ages varies widely and ‘old age’ hits different people at different times with 80-odd year-olds outperforming much younger people mentally and physically.

In the New York Times last year, Dr Scott Kaiser, director of geriatric cognitive health at Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica said certain cognitive skills – like vocabulary and abstract reasoning may stay constant or even improve with age for unknown reasons.

While the ‘too old for the job’ lobby swells in the US, Sam Carling, the youngest new MP, is facing criticism for being too young for the job in Westminster.

How can a 22-year-old Cambridge university natural sciences graduate be worldly-wise enough to represent the people of North West Cambridgeshire, a constituency he won by a sliver of 39 votes?

“No one has yet been able to explain to me why being older makes you better at the job,” he fired back, after two years on Cambridge City Council managing budgets of £1.7 million with a CV of activities that people twice his age would be hard-pressed to equal.

He claims time management and multi-tasking as key skills, innate skills that some people never master in a lifetime of trying.

Some people, young and old, are extraordinary performers and it’s offensive to write them off at either end of the spectrum merely because of age.

Besides, young people desperately need a voice in Westminster because their needs and future has been pushed to the bottom of priorities for too long.

Who knows better about the reality of being twentysomething, unable to afford rents let alone a mortgage and the challenges of early adulthood than a 22-year-old with 22-year-old friends.

We all know young people with wisdom and insight well beyond their years and septuagenarians who appear to have learned little in life.

Perhaps Biden’s health is suffering, which is a whole different ball game and reason to stop now. 

But let’s stop condemning, judging and writing off people on age alone.

New social pollution

Parents handing small children tablets or phones to keep them quiet and failing to give them headphones so everyone has to hear cartoon or electronic game tunes is a new social pollution.

Even worse, the children’s devices are blaring out on planes, trains and buses while mum or dad puts in their air pods to listen to their music, so they don’t have to hear the irritating game noise that the rest of us have to endure.

Then they’re super offended if you ask them to put earphones on their children to stop the din.

This, apparently, risks their child ear damage.

The rest of us are expected to cope with sky high blood pressure and irritation levels by parents with no social awareness who should buy a colouring book and spend some time with their children.

Postal vote didn't work

I’m still smarting at never having a chance to cast my General Election vote because my postal vote, applied for on June, four weeks before polling day, never arrived.

When I chased, days before leaving for holiday, I was told it should have been sent out but, if it didn’t arrive the next day, to pop into the council offices for a reissued pack.

Not helpful to suggest a 20-mile round trip when I was at work during council office opening hours.

Of course, I returned from holiday to two postal voting packs on the doormat to rub salt into the wounds.